This week unpacked

Think - what skills have you gained this week?

All Spring Internship Experience projects were designed to develop your skills - both your technical and transferable skills.

Technical skills - associated with specific professional tasks. Your project focused on three or four technical skills closely related to the project aims. Think things like: copywriting, market research, coding, website design, data visualisation, database design, data analysis, policy drafting, project planning, product design, or producing any sort of artefact - e.g. a social media content strategy, architectural concept designs, a newspaper article, dataset, creative media, or a report.

Transferable skills - also known as the Sheffield Graduate Attributes, these are attributes and skills required for success in the workplace and used across different professional contexts. Below are some of the key transferable skills you've developed this week.

Applying and translating knowledge and skills to contexts and challenges within and beyond your studies

Critically appraising, questioning, analysing and interpreting a variety of evidence, and applying research skills in different contexts

Working effectively with others and in teams, encouraging collaboration and contributing positively

Actively participate and positively affect others in personal, local, global or virtual communities

Curious, creative and innovative - considering and developing new approaches and ideas

Demonstrating an understanding of commercial and organisational decisions and wider contexts

Why do skills matter?

When you're applying for a role you need to step into the recruiter's shoes and show them that your experience matches their needs.

To make this easier, most roles will list the skills they need - for example, experience in producing social media content, the ability to work in a team, and the ability to solve problems. Here's an example of what a job description might look like.

To apply for this role, you'd need to demonstrate evidence of the required skills.

Your Spring Internship Experience is a great source of evidence, but it's not enough to just state that you did an internship - you need to explain what you did so that the employer understands it.

Take the communication skills section criterion. Below we've produced a sample application statement that demonstrates how you could use your internship experience to evidence this.

"In my second year I did an internship with an organisation called Sheffield Connect. I worked with a group of students to create a social media strategy for Sheffield Connect's new product.

I knew it was important that the finished work met the organisation's expectations, so I volunteered to take notes for our first group meeting with the organisation so that we could be certain we understood their needs.

The group later had a disagreement about the channels that should be included in the strategy. In a project meeting, I suggested we go back to what had been discussed with the organisation. This led to a group decision to focus on TikTok and Instagram because these were the two channels that had been mentioned.

Later in the week the group had several points that we wanted to clarify with the organisation. I collected all the questions and summarised them into one short email so that it was easier for the organisation to answer. I then shared information back with the rest of the team.

We created a presentation to explain the social media strategy to the organisation. I went back to the notes from the first meeting and noticed that the organisation had mentioned several questions they would like answers to. I was able to ensure that we incorporated these questions into the final presentation.

Following the presentation, we received feedback that the presentation answered all their questions and that they were very happy with the project outcomes."

Can you see how this example breaks down into specific actions that all link back to the communication skills criterion?

Also note the use of 'I' - even in a group project, the example explains what the writer individually did.

Notice also how the statement ends with a clear results!

Action - what are three things you did this week that made an impact?

Write them down so you can use them later! You can use your mySkills portfolio to record this as a development experience - log in here.

Answer the questions below to write a good development experience.

Description

For the Sheffield Internship Experience, my team and I developed...
Specifically, we were tasked with...
Day 1 was dedicated to...and my role was...
Day 2 involved...and my role was...
Day 3 focused on...and my role was...
Day 4 was for...and my role was...
On day 5...and my role was...

Reflection

My favourite part of the experience was...because...
My biggest contribution was...because...
I also made an impact through...because...
I felt...at the start of the week, and later in the week I felt...because...
I'm better at...than I was at the start of the week, because...
This week I've learned...
As a result of this experience, I want to...

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